After 6 days of doing nothing much it was time to leave Camogli and head back to Rome. We loved our time in Camogli and it’s mix of village living and hotel luxury. Despite plans to get out and see more of the Ligurian Coast, we pretty much just spent time exploring the village, and lounging by the pool or beach.

Our return trip to Rome consisted of the drive to Firenze and then a high speed train to Rome. The latter leg of the journey was thrown into some doubt as a national rail worker strike had been called for September 8 – the day we were travelling.

To make matters worse there was no definitive answer as to whether our service was running so our backup plan was to extend the rental car for a few hours and drive to Rome. Not ideal, but it would get us there – to our final stay of the trip at the lovely Hotel Barocco.

Eventually we found a list of trains that ‘should’ run during festivals and strikes (an interesting mix of events) but even then this is Italy, so who knows if this list is still current. Eventually we decided to time our run so we could check that our train service (which originated in Milan) actually left before we returned the rental car.

Sitting outside the rental car office in Firenze, illegally parked, we were able to confirm that, yes, the train had departed and we were good to go. The train station was chaos with thousands of people just milling around but luckily we could retreat to the Frecciarossa lounge and relax before boarding the train south.